The present invention pertains to devices used in arts and crafts activities, and, in particular, to a device used to support an article such as a wreath being worked on by a craftsperson.
Countless people participate in a wide range of creative activities which are commonly referred to as arts and crafts activities. Representative activities range from basket and wreath making to woodworking projects. The reasons for which people partake in these activities are numerous and very diverse. For example, arts and crafts activities may be performed to serve as an outlet for creative impulses, or as a method of relieving stress, or possibly as a means of economic gain.
One popular arts and crafts activity involves making and/or decorating hanging adornments such as wreaths. Wreaths fabricated from materials such as twigs, styrofoam, wire, straw, paper mache, etc., can be purchased or made, and then decorated in an individualistic fashion which is aesthetically pleasing to the craftsperson. Wreath decorating typically involves affixing various items including flowers, greenery, figures, bows, ribbon, and cloth to the wreath with materials such as wire, string and/or glue or alternative adhesives.
While the process of transfiguring a wreath to enhance its appearance can be a fulfilling experience for the craftsperson, one aspect of the process can be especially problematic. In particular, for many people, the hassles of holding and maneuvering the wreath during the transfiguration process is frequently an annoying and inconvenient task which interferes with decorating.
Specifically, when decorating a wreath, a craftsperson typically rotates the wreath to center the wreath, i.e. identify the rotational orientation where the wreath looks best. A hangar for eventually mounting the wreath may be fashioned from a piece of wire or other element and attached to the wreath at this stage of decoration. Then, the craftsperson begins attaching the materials such as the bow or ribbons to the wreath. During this attaching or decorating process, due to the lack of a more viable alternative, many people resort to setting the wreath flat on a support or work surface such as a table top. Before adding each new decoration, a craftsperson frequently picks up the wreath from the support surface to recenter the wreath which may have shifted during decorating and to check how the decorations look in a frontal, mounted view. Besides being tedious, this continual recentering of the wreath provides abundant opportunity for displacing or disturbing those decorations previously placed.
Resorting to placing wreaths on a table top during decorating also may undesirably slow the decorating process. For example, when glue or another adhesive is employed to affix decorations, especially decorations which are attached on the back side of the wreath normally laid on the table top, drying time is required for the glue before the wreath can be returned to its normal arrangement on the support surface. When the wreath has to be set down on, for example, its front surface during glue drying, no further decorating of the front of the wreath can be undertaken. Consequently, a wreath or other hanging adornment that might otherwise be decorated within a several hour period takes up table or counter space for a longer time while waiting to be finished. As many craftspersons decorate or create as a hobby and therefore work in their homes, for example at their kitchen tables, the drying wreaths take up important space and may have to be moved out of harms way at some point during their drying, increasing the likelihood of disturbing the placed decorations.
To overcome these problems, during the decorating process some craftspersons hang the hanging adornment from a hook placed in pegboard that has been mounted on a wall. Unfortunately, this technique is not always practical to all craftspersons for a variety of reasons. For example, besides the obvious problem that not everyone has a pegboard equipped wall, even those with access to pegboard also need a table, counter-top or other surface adjacent to the pegboard on which the decorations can be placed in order to make decorating convenient. In addition, the lack of portability is a shortcoming, as this technique does not allow a craftsperson the freedom to work wherever she/he desires, such as out on a picnic table on a nice day.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a device which overcomes these shortcomings of the prior art.